A host of picturesque coastal towns and white sandy beaches await the Sydney sightseeing traveler who opts for a daytrip south.
You could take an organised tour south or you could drive.
If you're driving, brush up on some driving basics. In either case, stock up on some brochures of the Illawarra region and South Coast as they will be of help in deciding where to stop. For instance, there's Stanwell Park where you can go hang gliding or paragliding or you can go farther south for some fishing at Narooma or Bermagui.
Two main ways south
From the heart of Sydney, there are two main ways leading south.
From the Moore Park area take South Dowling St and continue through Southern Cross Dr to General Holmes Dr, turning right at President Ave and turning left at the Princes Highway.
If starting from Sydney's inner west, take Broadway, turn left at City Rd and continue through King St in Newtown until you are able to join the Princes Highway going south.
The Princes Highway goes all the way south to Melbourne — if you wanted to go that far.
Start closer to home
For the moment, our main interest is going south out of the city for a pleasant sightseeing drive to, say, Jervis Bay and returning in the evening.
But let's start closer to home.
The Royal is a day in itself
Going past Sutherland on the Princes Highway, the Royal National Park is on your left — and this is a day's visit in itself with boating on the Hacking River, a number of picnic grounds, many with barbecue facilities, bush tracks of various distances and degrees of difficulty, and beaches at Bundeena (Horderns Beach, Gunyah Beach, Jibbon Beach), Wottamolla and Garie.
If, say, you're only going to Bundeena and not stopping at other sites within the national park, you can travel through the park without paying an entrance fee.
You can drive to the Royal National Park, spend a day there communing with nature, and return to the city by late afternoon, and it would have been a day well spent.
But of course, you can go farther south.
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